David Moulton: You never know who you might run into at City of Palms Classic

The City of Palms Classic tips off Friday at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers.

Voted the No. 1 high school tournament in the country this year by MaxPreps, the City of Palms will have a unique element to it this year.

Most years, the top players in the field have already decided which powerhouse college program they will be attending next fall.

This year, the City of Palms Classic has six of the consensus 15 best players in the country participating. Five of those six are undecided. They either do not know or have not committed to a college.

So not only will the basketball have star power, but it's highly likely that a Who's Who from the college basketball coaching world will be on hand as well.

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I don't think Raheem Morris can survive as Tampa Bay Bucs head coach if he loses at home to Dallas on Saturday.

The Bucs are 4-9, have lost seven straight and are regressing. Throw in an alienated fan base and Bucs ownership will feel the need for change.

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I know Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun is innocent until proven guilty of his failed performance-enhancing drug test in October.

However, if he loses his appeal and I'm running the baseball writers association, we're having a re-vote on the National League MVP award. If the voters — now knowing that he tested positive for a PED — still feel he's the MVP, fine. But for the baseball media to pretend as if this failed drug test never happened is exactly how the steroid era was allowed to unfold in the first place.

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How can a BCS school like Pitt allow its football coach, Todd Graham, to be able to leave them high and dry after just one year with no compensation or penalty in any way built into his contract?

When Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia for Michigan he had to pay WVU $4 million. If Bobby Petrino wants to leave Arkansas before his contract is up it will cost him millions.

Athletic directors and university presidents have to take the power back from these coaches. Heading into this season, there are only 66 BCS head coaching jobs. Sixty-Six! Almost all of them pay a million dollars a year and the average salary is close to double that.

If these men want these jobs they will sign a piece of paper which forces them to honor at least half of their contracts (imagine that) or pay a substantial financial penalty for leaving early.

When they fail and get fired the schools have to honor the rest of their contracts by paying them millions, but the coaches can get up and leave with no penalties in the overwhelming majority of circumstances? That's a joke!

If I'm a university president (and what a scary thought that is) and my athletic director agrees to such a deal then he or she is my former athletic director.

It is worth noting this is the same University of Pittsburgh who bolted the Big East (along with Syracuse) for the ACC and do not want to honor their two-year contractual wait before being allowed to leave. I believe that's the definition of irony.

You know what they say about payback.

Finally, the big losers in all of this are, once again, the players.

At Pitt, amazingly they will now have a fourth head coach in a little over a year, yet if a player wanted to transfer they would have to sit out from football for a year while paying for their schooling at the same time. Sounds fair, right?

Let's not even get started on the bowl games. Virginia Tech gets invited to the Sugar Bowl. Great, right? Well, only if they can sell their allotment of tickets. As part of the contract that Virginia Tech signed with the Sugar Bowl, they agreed to sell or buy thousands of tickets for the game at $120 per. This is a standard part of every bowl contract.

So far, Hokies fans do not seem enamored with the matchup against Michigan. So much so that currently Virginia Tech would owe the Sugar Bowl a check for over $1 million for the unsold tickets.

When will these schools grab the power away from these bowls, many of which are highly profitable yet receive taxpayer funding? These bowls need the teams far more than the teams need the bowls, especially if the schools are going to lose money playing in them.

Big-time college athletics some days can make Congress look both competent and ethical.

David Moulton is a freelance writer and co-host of "Miller and Moulton in the Afternoon," which airs weekdays 2 to 7 p.m. on WWCN/AM 770 ESPN. His column runs Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.